Revealed: Attlee's ignorance of the Cambridge spies who defected in 1951
Three weeks after two of Britain's most notorious spies defected to Soviet Russia, the Prime Minister and his cabinet were more concerned about the moral fibre of the Foreign Office than any threat posed to national security.
Top-secret papers released on New Year's Day reveal the true extent of the ignorance and incompetence at the heart of the then government and the intelligence services during one of the most serious breaches of security in British history. The classified notes, innocuously entitled "Foreign Office officials", were written by the cabinet secretary, Sir Norman Brook, on 11 June 1951.
Three weeks earlier, Donald Maclean, head of the US department in the diplomatic service in London, and Guy Burgess, a diplomat formerly based in Washington, had quietly deserted their posts and left Britain for Russia.
But the cabinet notes show that the prime minister Clement Attlee and the foreign secretary Herbert Morrison appeared more concerned with Donald Maclean's drinking and an allegation of attempted rape.
Read entire article at Independent (UK)
Top-secret papers released on New Year's Day reveal the true extent of the ignorance and incompetence at the heart of the then government and the intelligence services during one of the most serious breaches of security in British history. The classified notes, innocuously entitled "Foreign Office officials", were written by the cabinet secretary, Sir Norman Brook, on 11 June 1951.
Three weeks earlier, Donald Maclean, head of the US department in the diplomatic service in London, and Guy Burgess, a diplomat formerly based in Washington, had quietly deserted their posts and left Britain for Russia.
But the cabinet notes show that the prime minister Clement Attlee and the foreign secretary Herbert Morrison appeared more concerned with Donald Maclean's drinking and an allegation of attempted rape.